Decolonization of education. Promoting intercultural dialogue at UNAN-Managua

Abstract

This essay aims to analyze interculturality and decolonization in higher education to generate theoretical discussions, accumulate experiences and horizontal dialogues with faculty and  students. The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua, Managua (UNAN- Managua) from its own efforts and accompanied by the Intercultural Commission of the National University Council (CNU, for its acronym in Spanish), is embarking on the paths of interculturality, leading the decolonization of education and curricular transformation processes as well as profound changes in social, human and scientific paradigms. The reflective approaches are supported by scientific literature on interculturality, education and decolonization, mainly from the philosophical paradigm of the South. This essay highlights the liberating project that the university has as the heritage of the Nicaraguan people with a revolutionary legacy. The methodology used responds to the qualitative approach, with participatory techniques, establishing dialogue strategies to collect the necessary information that contributes to the proposed reflection. The findings highlight that the route to decolonization is mediated through an intercultural dialogue at the university, which evidences cultural conflicts, disagreements, the urban-rural relationship, development-poverty, quality-warmth, objectivesubjective, in short, the dialogue of interculturality places not only the teacher, but also the student, on the plane of reflection and pedagogical experience.